1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention relates to a computerized method and system for synthesizing electronically transparent audio. More particularly, embodiments of the present invention relate to a method of synthesizing electronic watermarks that contain information on copyright identification to be appended to music data, as well as a system for synthesizing such electronic watermarks.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various multimedia devices using digital data have become widely popular in recent years. Regarding music data, an environment is now in place where the user can easily copy music in a desired format, for example by copying a CD (compact disc) to an MD (mini disc) or using a personal computer to download to a dedicated handheld player any MP3 (MPEG Audio Layer 3) music data distributed over the Internet.
With the increase in the utility of music through its digitization in a readily recordable manner, and given the increasingly diverse applications of music, a growing number of music creators are playing or copying parts of recorded music, and it has become sufficiently possible for anyone to rearrange and recompile copied parts into a new track and claim it as an original work.
Needless to say, music data are copyrighted works, and therefore essentially those who copy or broadcast music data must pay royalties to the copyright owners. However, in today's environment, where music can easily be copied as digital data, it is extremely difficult to prevent violation of copyrights and neighboring rights or reliably identify those who violate such rights.
Technologies are therefore being studied as a means of embedding, into individual music data using electronic watermark technology, a set of copyright information specifying the distribution route or history of each music data, in order to protect the rights of copyright owners and collect royalties on uses of music data in a reliable manner.
Applicant has proposed a technology to generate electronic watermarks using harmonics, pedal tones and other consonances conforming to music theory, and to record the watermarks in the original music data by synthesizing them into the data. This technology is described in Applicant's Japanese Publication 2001-343974 of Patent Application No. JP2000-160233, which is hereby incorporated by reference.